


This Strange New World

by agent_orange



Category: Supernatural
Genre: College, Drabble Collection, F/M, Family Secrets, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Origin Story, Pre-Series, Pregnancy, Secrets, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2156583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_orange/pseuds/agent_orange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was raised to be a hunter, and this feels like a betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Strange New World

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://scorpiod1.livejournal.com/profile)[**scorpiod1**](http://scorpiod1.livejournal.com/) for betaing.

**i.**

Mary dreams of living somewhere better than Lawrence, Kansas, a better life than hunting and being a housewife. She works hard to stay at the top of the class with the boys, cheers at the football games, and volunteers at the local shelter—she knows colleges want well-rounded students.

Kansas State University offers her a full ride; she takes it, knowing there won't be many better offers for her. It's not exactly what she expected (most of the students are from her high school), but she works harder, learns all she can. She wants to make something of herself.

**ii.**

After catching Thomas Blake, her high school sweetheart, with his hand up Jacqueline Lamoriello's skirt, Mary ends it with him. He laughs and says prom night would've been better with Jackie; at least she'd have known what she was doing, and that admission hurts more than the betrayal or the breakup itself. She's angry enough to punch him out, and she knows she'd leave a nice bruise, but she doesn't. She does decide to take a break from boys. They're not worth the time or the effort, and she doesn't want her grades slipping because she's upset over something dumb.

**iii.**

Of course, a week later, she takes her father's car into the garage to get it fixed. Someone she's never seen before slides out from under the hood of a beaten-up, rusty truck, and asks, "How can I help you?"

He's very attractive—messy dark hair, intense eyes, strong jaw; she's supposed to be taking a break from boys, but John (she spots the name sewn into his coveralls) isn't a boy.

"Mary," she says, shaking his hand even though he hesitates. His own have got grease on them, and he must not want to get it on her.

**iv.**

Over dinner (he'd been shy about asking her, like he was afraid she'd say no), she learns he works at the garage because his father's sick and can't. He never finished high school, but he wants to get a GED and go to college. He asks her what she wants to do when she's finished with school, her dreams, where she'd like to visit. His face softens when she talks, his eyes light up.

Afterwards, they get ice cream; when John kisses her, tongue sweet with chocolate, she thinks that maybe they'll get married someday, as silly as it sounds.

**v.**

Mary's father is rude whenever John comes around, but her mom likes him fine. She invites him for dinner, and gives him extra mashed potatoes, the biggest piece of pie...he's almost like the son Mary knows her mom's always wanted.

 _Almost_ , but not, because after coffee, she takes him to her bedroom and kisses him against the door. "They're right down the hall," she whispers. "But you can be quiet, can't you, John?"

He can, but just barely. The finger-shaped bruises on Mary's hips are proof of that. She touches them in the shower, remembering his hands there.

**vi.**

The war in Vietnam heats up, and John's lottery number is low, so he decides to enlist. "Being a Marine is safer," he tells her. It doesn't help. She worries he won't come back alive; he writes home, but not often enough to ease that fear.

They're the longest years of her life. She goes from job to job, unable to focus; her friends eventually stop calling, and she's lonely. The day he finally comes home (early, due to injury, but he'll recover) is bright and sunny. She cries with happiness, and John wraps her in his arms. "I'm here."

**vii.**

Their wedding is in late July. Mary's parents have been dead for a few months; John didn't want to rush her, and offered to postpone the wedding, but Mary wanted to put everything behind her. Lucy, a close friend from college, is the maid of honor, and her Uncle Scott gives her away. Her dress is simple—strapless, with an empire waist. John looks like he's going to cry, even though he's also got a huge smile plastered on his face.

It's a new beginning. The first day of the rest of her life, and it's going to be great.

**viii.**

Old habits aren't so easy to break. As soon as the bank approves their loan, and they make a down payment on the house, they start decorating. Instinctively, Mary wants salt lines at every window, every door. She wants to carve devil's traps into the floor and protective sigils into the walls, keep holy water in an accessible yet secret flask, sleep with a knife under her pillow. She was raised to be a hunter—it's in her blood—and shutting that part of her off feels strange.

It feels like a betrayal of her family, but also of John.

**ix.**

Work hasn't been going that well lately, so when John tells her he got a promotion and then opens the bottle of cheap wine he bought to celebrate (even though he'd rather have a cold beer), she's thrilled. But John looks hurt when she declines the drink. She doesn't want to steal his thunder, but she has to tell him.

"I'm pregnant," she says.

He sweeps her off her feet and into a kiss, warm and sweet and familiar. "Wow," he says, and _wow_ again. "I've always wanted to name my kid—"

"We're not naming our baby Debbie," Mary laughs.

**x.**

John's so careful with her, always asking _Can I?_ before he touches her. She knows he's worried about the baby, but it's not like he has a reason to be—the doctor said everything was fine.

He talks to the baby when he thinks she's asleep, sliding down the bed so he's looking right at her belly, and she'd protest—she doesn't want him to see her like that, huge and round—but his hand is warm, and she's never heard him use that tone before, and he's so full of awe that she just fake-snores, and lets him.


End file.
